“With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be therenot always, but more often than not. With girls, Why her? came up so quickly.”

“It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing to be one.”

“I remember Mum repeatedly telling us we had good hearts and good brains. When she said that we'd say 'thanks' and it might have sounded as if we were thanking her for seeing us that way but actuall...”

“She found Safiye leaning against an oil lantern out in the garden and saw for herself that she wasn't the only foolish woman in the world, or even at that party, for Safiye had Lucy's highly polish...”

“The cards spoke to a suspicion that many whose work is play can never be free of: that you can only flaunt your triviality for so long before punishment is due.”

“She had to quickly pop back to the fifteenth century to find a word for how beautiful he was. The boy was makeless.”

“We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them.”

“But these weren't the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around--they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, ...”

“You guys know about vampires? You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? Theres this idea that monsters dont have reflections in a mirror. And what Ive always thought isnt that monsters d...”